"Why add a breakdown into a song that is already just one continuous breakdown?" - Unkown.

Wise words, especially if directed towards Suicide Silence. Their newest album The Black Crown is exactly that, one monotonous breakdown. When I listen to a band, I try to keep an open mind, I try to go in as unbiased as possible, but even with that mindset, I was still sickened by this album.

So, what happens when you combine mediocre instrumentals, mediocre vocals and god-awful lyrics? Well, if you bake that at 350 for 20 minutes you'll get a mediocre metal meat pie! The album is virtually one 40 minute long track, the songs are so similar that sometimes it's hard to distinguish which is which. The guitars are occasionally okay to listen to, they have some nice riffs and some chugging breakdowns, but they aren't something new and extraordinary. The bass work is very simplistic, following the rhythm guitar most of the time. Drumming falls into the average-subpar category, with your average double bass work and cymbal crashes. The vocals are nice, for the most part, with the range staying in the high-mid. Mitch Lucker does his job fine, however the clean vocals that appear on a few of the tracks are just brutal, more brutal than a small child getting hit by a bus.

Overall, I was very disappointed in this album; the worst part is that this is their best work… If you're a 12 year-old hipster I recommend you check this out, if not, avoid at all costs.

...Time for another big can of worms to be opened up. Here's another album which, regardless of how you approach it in your review, someone is going to completely lose their shit on you for either being too harsh, or not being harsh enough. A lot of people seem to hate Suicide Silence. Well, while I certainly don't understand the intense animosity people express towards this band, I don't exactly understand the attraction either.

When you look at the comments section below one of their videos on YouTube, the words that you'll find there are most often "gay," "fag," "shit" or a combination of these. We're all aware how hated Suicide Silence and deathcore are in general, but whether we like it or not, these young Americans have become really big. Ok, their debut album, The Cleansing, was a mediocre deathcore record. Their second LP, No Time To Bleed, showed a band developing and even though it was based on deathcore structures, it contained more departures from the previously chosen genre and more experiments, for example wider and wiser selection of electronic samples. In a nutshell, it was a better CD. Now we have The Black Crown, which is a proof that Suicide Silence do not intend to stand still. Based on the genre they have helped to create, they have become a trademark of and also bear the burden of being its scapegoat, they are on their way of creating something on their own. What I mean is that they distanced themselves from other deathcore groups and when you listen to them and compare to, let's say, Oceano (yuck!), you can clearly see a difference.